The Economist reports the results of a new poll showing that, despite the fact that more Americans consider themselves conservative, opinions on cultural issues are in fact swinging towards the liberal side. The Economist seems flummoxed by this occurance.
The simple answer to their conundrum is that Americans are challenging what it means to be conservative, and are becoming, on the whole, more socially liberal, while simultaneously shifting towards economic conservatism--as The Economist's poll results on declining support for labor unions would seem to indicate. The terms "conservative" and "liberal" then, fail to take on meaning.
Or maybe that's just the wishful thinking of a libertarian. Interesting article, anyway.
So would economic conservatism include running huge deficits or not?
ReplyDeletein times of war or in times of recession, why not?
ReplyDeletenot that I think everything Bush has done fiscally is wise...but deficits have a time and place, and this was perhaps one of them.
that said, we shouldn't increase spending when the economy picks up; we should pay off debt and start saving for the next recession.
Check out Prof. Terry Clark's stuff. He has a whole theory of this called The New Political Culture (and a book by the same name)...
ReplyDelete